Owl,

Si. The many targets per one jet thing made jets with more bombs (e.g. BUF)
more attractive to ABCCC dudes.

The A-6 was used very handily in the shore-base expeditionary role in DS.
In fact, I seem to remember photos of USMC squadrons loaded with 10 x 82¹s
and 12 x Mk-20¹s. IMHO the 28-bomb loadout was almost a ³ferry tail² given
that at least one drop tank was required for on station time‹at least in my
experience.

I¹m fairly sure the 500 lb JDAM has IOC¹ed (GBU-38). I haven¹t seen one yet
personally though. Good for Harriers mostly... And any other strike
platform that is concerned about CD.

--Woody

On 11/14/05 1:02 PM, in article
, "Mike Kanze"
wrote:

Woody,

It goes almost without saying that one of the Drumstick's finest attributes
was as a carrier-capable long-legged flying dump truck.

And playing the "what might have been" along with you, the switch to weps that
give platforms "targets per sortie" capabilities (versus the "sorties per
target" days of the VN war) would further magnify the "dump truck" honorific.

With the air attack emphasis in the current conflict moving increasingly
toward smaller, high-accuracy weps (take out the shed in the back of the third
house in the block, instead of the entire block), the potential A-6 loadout
approaches the old 28 weps-on-5-MERS configuration (and your FAC(A) scenario,
minus the comparatively-inaccurate rockets). Further, this hypothetical begs
the reintroduction of the A-6 into a USMC-style shore-based expeditionary
usage. With no need to lug to/from the boat, more drop tanks are switched out
for MERs.

Certainly a change from the days of "take out the center tank in the first row
of the POL complex" and pray that your system didn't go squirrelly, taking
your run over Uncle Ho's Happy Peoples' Convalescent Hospital & SAM Warehouse,
or some other McNamara-forbidden target.

ISTR that a MK82 JDAM is in the works, or maybe already deployed, n'est-ce
pas?